Superhero Filmmakers: Where's Our Watchmen?

Just felt like watching about 200 cgi-animated commercials and the only thing in common was the same characters, each scene was like a separated thing wich didn't have much to do with what happened next. Simply couldn't take any interest in any of them or in the plot itself. I can kind understand that someone who loves the comic book would like, in a fanboy way though

You know when a movie opens up with the "easy listening pop song soundtracks a gruesome murder" distancing effect that you're in store for one of those sordid movies with nihilistic posturing. I liked Se7en but the genre has become its own cliche over the years.

"easy listening pop song"

yeah, fuck nat king cole

Just back. Thought it was just about as good as it possibly could have been. Brought back obsessing over the issues as they came out, to the point of remembering huge chunks of dialogue.

Losing the squid worked for me, thought all the principals worked really well. Particularly liked Ozymandias as 'Man who fell to earth' Bowie/Numan.

I've refrained from clicking on this thread all this time, at least since the movie came out: and having just seen it tonight I agree with - of all random things! - most of the post immediately above.

I simply could hardly see how this (magnificent) source text could have been better adapted to a film. It was almost flawless, on any terms I can imagine setting. Extraordinary, really. Maybe, by default (cos Watchmen is one of the greatest things I've ever read), this is one of the greatest films I've ever seen. Or maybe this is still too much an instant reaction.

Didn't like Ozymandias, but then he's a villain, I shouldn't like him; and indeed he's remarkably Bowiesque. The last 20 minutes were where it might have fallen down some (ie: maybe it did?): even though I think the film's altered plot is probably BETTER, it somewhat loses Moore's dialogue and control of scenes at that point and thus maybe goes wayward. And the penultimate scene with Nite Owl / Silk Spectre I + II was one of the worst, before the final scene that pretty much ended things on the right note.

Very, very little that I can see to complain about here.

One of you needs to start a rumor that the squid was edited out of the ending while Zack Snyder was in South America.

I think the film transposes the fact that the comic is a comment and satire of comicbooks into the film being a comment and satire on comicbook films

All along this was my issue with doing the film at all - how exactly is it going to translate? Especially once it became clear that we were looking to a shot-for-shot remake...pretty hard to make this work. There are some surprisingly nice stabs, though - in addition to the things you name, I'd throw in the portrayals of Dreiberg and Rorschach - the former is CLEARLY Christopher Reeve's Clark Kent, and the latter's voice is unmistakably riffing on Christian Bale's Batman. To give us the movie Superman as a wussy dork and the movie Batman as a deranged maniac is pretty much on-point with what the comic was doing, maybe a sophomoric inversion but it's appropriate.

The problem is... the treatment of the violence won't let either of those inversions breathe. Watchmen the book isn't nearly the study of superhero fascism that The Dark Knight Returns is, but it's certainly bouncing around in it, in a way that the movie can't sell because it's just got too many badass shots of Nite Owl (not such a wussy dork now) and Silk Spectre kicking the shit out of people. The Comedian is clearly a bad guy, but the others...eh!

Rorschach is really where this falls apart...in the book it was very clear that when his mask gets taken off he's this nobody loser guy with a lot of problems. The movie keeps all his badass qualities... I mean he's definitely shown as kind of fucked-up, but, I mean, they won't cut a minute of his prison breakout but there's not nearly the sense of Dan and Laurie being kind of freaked out about him. How could there be? They sanction and participate in the same kind of violence!

The dead giveway is the swinging bathroom door scene - in the book it's explicit that Dan and Laurie do not realize that Rorschach has gone in there to kill somebody. Here they'd have to be idiots not to realize.

I enjoyed watching this, great to see everything looking so good, nice period stuff, etc etc, "ooh there's that!" but I'm with the "they missed the point" crowd. This doesn't really operate in any coherent way as a deconstruction or critique of superheroes, certainly not the genre conventions of superhero movies, and I'd be surprised if many people independently read it that way without being prepped by discussion of the comic.

It's not a bad film for what it is. I couldn't help but spend the whole time scrutinising it and comparing it to the comic, and of course it fell well short. None of the people I went with knew the book well (one guy had read it ten years ago), and they were expecting an entertaining, darker than average superhero flick, and that's what they got. None of them had the slightest problem following the plot, by the way. I felt a bit curmudgeonly with my complaints afterwards - everyone was like 'lighten up you nerd, it was pretty decent.'

One point it failed utterly on - I asked one friend if he'd guessed that Viedt was behind everything, and he said he had right from his first scene.

learned today that my tutor (a pediatrician) has just started reading the graphic novel because he heard that the movie is impossible to understand w/o it

this was hilarious to me

ie - is this what america is doing? what are the sales figures on the book???

I liked it but I did feel liked I'd been drowned in origin stories. Also, fuck, I forgot how damned bleak it was. New ending is about a bazillion times better than that damn squid, which I hate to say almost ruined the book for me. AQlso I don't think Spectre 2 was a bad actress! She was way less irritating that the Laurie in the book.

Also, DAMN! The gore! I had to look away! There were tiny prepubescent boys around and the theater was punctuated with whispers of 'cover your eyes.'

All I know is I've seen tons of people reading it on the tube recently.

xpost - The new ending worked fine, yeah. I'll always have a place in my heart for squidy, but he'd look a bit shite on the big screen.

DAMN! The gore!

One of my biggest problems with the film, and one I specifically lay at Snyder's feet.

Sensibly they've given it an 18 cert here.

Love how Nite Owl stayed a loveable schlub. I was worried they'd doll him up.

Also, what made me laugh a LOT is they changed one of the scenes of the book everyone complained about the most: the movie made it so it took four guesses to figure out Ozy's password, not just 'oh-ho ramsesii duh.'

I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but stylistically the book isn't all super-slomo ultraviolence at all. If anything, the violence is rather matter-of-fact.

yeah it just sorta happens

Also I thought the Forrest-Gump-obvious soundtrack worked really well!

I'm not sure that the film is worse than the - magnificent, unique, inspiring - comic book.

the film's worse, but by a long way not as bad as i'd expected.

i think the super stylish violence (particularly from nite owl) and the portrayal of veidt as obvious bad guy from the start were the only two complaints of any type i'd make, and that's probably because they are obvious departures from the source.

it was obvious from the trailer alone that they were ramping up Veidt's badguy obviousness. defeatist perhaps, but probably wise as would've taken a lot more work to disguise this in the film to the extent where more story changes would've been needed for it to work at all.

Finally seeing this on the IMAX this weekend, now that the hubbub has died down. Not expecting a whole lot, so hopefully I'll be entertained.

Enjoyed this thoroughly despite my frustrations about Snyder's boner for broken bones.

On balance, I think the film is great, and that criticisms of it are primarily nit-picks.

golly, I'm with the Vicar! he and I can be partners on this, like Nite Owl and Rorschach in the 1970s.

I agree, but I think you're both twee fucks. Does that make me The Comedian?

I have an improbably large penis, so I can strip down and be Dr. Manhattan.

would putting on blueface for hallowe'en be racist tho?

Tales of the Black Freighter cartoon is online and totally ruling. Better than the movie and I liked the movie.

anyone else notice that veidt had a folder labeled 'boys' on his desktop?

btw this was way better than i thought it would be

Yes I did

yes it was fabulous

I enjoyed it too actually. There was plenty you could nitpick about, but there was also lots to like, although if I hadn't read it I suspect I would have enjoyed it much less. And it was actually very funny, although the part I laughed hardest at was when Rorschach doused the dude with boiling chip fat. Hilariously high-pitched squealing. And I wasn't the only one laughing!

Saw it again last night in IMAX and I was actually surprised at how little my feelings towards it changed (and since I beat that to death over on the blog I won't rehash here). Two things stood out, though -- Matthew Goode as Ozymandias gave a sharper performance than I first realized, while I was taken aback at how some sequences proved to be flat out boring on a second watch (some perhaps unavoidably so).

Certainly there's plenty to nitpick but I think dismissing all criticism of the film as that is incredibly blinkered. This is a flawed film and my belief that Snyder is ultimately the worst thing about it was reconfirmed.

Meantime, it was a late showing on a Tuesday night and all, granted, but seeing literally only ten people in an IMAX theater just two and a half weeks after it came out kinda said it all. You got the sense that the complex just couldn't wait to get Monsters and Aliens in on Friday.

name an unflawed film

joe dirt

Excellent hair detailing on that one.

I don't know, I still think the worst thing about it is the sheer amount of material it needs to get through in its attempt to have the same impact as the graphic novel. I was expecting weird, flat pacing because the source material has weird, flat pacing, so that aspect of it doesn't bother me. I also really, really, really liked the slo-mo fight scenes because it really highlighted to me the fact that the one thing all of these people had in common was that they felt completely out of place unless they were hurting people.

(I also like slo-mo in general)

I thought the opening fight sequence in The Comedian's penthouse was easily the best action sequence in the film. I saw this at a matinee this past Saturday on the IMAX and it was sold out. Grated it was Saturday, but it still seems to be pulling in decent attendance here in Chicago.

it seems kinda weird to say that the director is the worst thing about a movie. i mean, he should at least get credit for some of the things that were done well (i thought the pacing was surprisingly good, loved the credits sequence, the '80s touches, i even liked some of the oddball music choices with the exception of the hendrix tune).

most films, that I see, are actually quite bad, or disappointing - or 'flawed'?

Wendy & Lucy for instance, and every other quiet indie film in which no one ever says anything of any interest at all

and all the other terrible films

compared to all those, Watchmen seemed like one of the greatest films I've ever seen. the only 'flaw' for me (I said this way upthread) was how, cos they changed the ending, they suddenly lost Moore's dialogue for a stretch in the last 20 minutes, and the replacement dialogue somehow seemed inferior.

apart from that it was relatively 'flawless'
which is very unusual

the fact that millions of other people don't like it or watch it doesn't sound like a criticism to me

they watch loads of films I would hate

it seems kinda weird to say that the director is the worst thing about a movie.

It's in one of my blog ramblings but Snyder brought two things in specific to the movie version that I don't like in general -- the slo-mo fetish (unlike Dan, I'm not a fan of that) and a gore level that, while arguably an extension of what was in the comic, is in a realm that I have never enjoyed in film in the first place. Whatever strengths he displays are ultimately twinned up with those elements which I feel are weaknesses or simply not for me -- I can't handwave those.

The slo-mo thing for the action sequences is the first time I can recall that technique being used for that kind of shot in a comic book film; is it not perhaps a direct visual analogue / reference to that fact that ALL violence in actual comic book panels is in "slo-mo"; i.e. static illustrations, and you can spend as long looking at it as you like?

It is indeed meant to be an analogue, Snyder's actually been very clear on that, to his credit. Doesn't mean I have to like it/can't easily get tired of it!

Furry muff.

the gore was pretty o_O, if i was going to rationalize it i would say that he was trying to make it less "comic booky" ie trying to convey that yes, these vigilantes are actually hurting people.